An Unexpected Meeting
by Glaurung64
Summary: When an accident aboard the Prometheus propels SG-1 back to the 1600s, they meet a mysterious Scottish knight who hold the key to their journey home. But fate has bigger plans for them than any of them would imagine...
1. The Accident

**Author's Note: Edited and reformatted some parts to make it less poorly written. Also broke up into several chapters in preparation for future update.**

"So do you know anything about why we're up here yet, Jack?" Daniel asked.

"No," Colonel O'Neill responded curtly.

"Really? Sam hasn't told you anything?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, she has," O'Neill said. "I just wasn't listening." Daniel stared at him. "What? They have the good Jell-O up here."

"Okay, well, I guess we'll find out at the briefing," Daniel said.

"What briefing?"

"The one that's at 1600 hours? There was a memo? …Right, that would explain it." Daniel said.

"1600 hours? That's in…" O'Neill checked his watch. "12 minutes. Think we have time to stop by the cafeteria?"

"No, probably not."

The two began to wander towards the briefing room, 3 decks above them. One deck away, a familiar Jaffa stepped into the elevator.

"Greetings, Colonel O'Neill, Dr. Jackson," said Teal'c. "Have you discovered the reason for our endeavors aboard the _Prometheus_?"

"Well, not yet. That's why we're going to the meeting," Daniel replied.

"I will be most interested to learn the purpose of the device about which Major Carter seems so enthusiastic," Teal'c said.

As they reached the briefing room, they were greeted by Colonel Ronson, commander of the _Prometheus_. Then, Carter began her presentation.

"As many of you know, we have previously been limited in transportation. Our only practical interstellar travel is through the Stargates or the _Prometheus_ here. Although the Asgard have promised us the hyperdrive and beaming technology, even these will not allow us to respond rapidly to threats throughout the galaxy.

"However, one technology which we have had yet to make significant use of is the Goa'uld ring platforms. These are mainly used for intrasolar system beaming, usually onto a Goa'uld ship. With the help of our Tok'ra allies, we have managed to begin to reverse engineer this technology.

"Although we refer to it as Goa'uld technology because they are its most common modern users, the rings were actually invented by the Ancients. As a result, we have been able to use our study of the Stargate system and the help of the Asgard to reverse engineer them into this device."

With that, Carter gestured towards the large metal device behind her, which looked something like a cross between a bar, a drum set, and an array of computers. "This device is capable of transmitting small amounts of matter through subspace at superluminal speeds."

Here, O'Neill raised his hand. "So, it's basically a Stargate."

Carter responded quickly: "It is similar in function to a Stargate. However, there are two main differences. Stargates create a controllable singularity to form a wormhole which bends spacetime to connect two points, sending the user a short distance in real spacetime to cover a high effective difference. This device uses subspace…"

O'Neill cut her off. "Well, obviously. And the other difference?"

"This device does _not_ need a receiving device on the other end. This may seem unimportant, but consider the fact the Stargates on Goa'uld strongholds are always heavily defended. With this, we could beam anywhere on the planet, or even directly into the stronghold if it does not have a shield. It would provide an enormous tactical advantage against the Goa'uld.

"So far, we have tested the device on the surface of the planet several times, over short and long distances. This will be the first test from orbit down to the planet's surface."

Suddenly, the ship rocked and the lights went out. "What was that?" Colonel Ronson asked. "Battle stations!"

The crew rushed to the bridge, where they found a Goa'uld Ha'tak outside the window, firing upon them. "They got a lucky first shot in while our shields were down, sir. The reactor was damaged; we've lost shields! We have hull breaches all over the ship!" Carter shouted.

"Return fire. Give them everything we've got!" ordered Ronson.

"We can't return fire! Our rail guns use power from the main reactor too! All of our systems are down, even life support!" Carter said. Sparks rained down as the incoming fire continued.

"Then what can we do? Can we surrender? There has to be something," asked Ronson.

"We don't even have the power to hail them. The only thing we can do… of course!" said Carter.

"What? I need something, anything," said Ronson.

I don't have time to explain!" Carter yelled over her shoulder as she rushed off. She headed back down the hall to the briefing room, where her machine had been abandoned. She called a technician over to help her.

"I can teleport everyone on board down to the planet's surface. I just need help expanding the range on the device to encompass the entire ship. It should have enough power; it's not connected to the rest of the _Prometheus_ ," Carter said to the technician. The two began working frantically on the machine. Within just a few seconds, it whirred to life, and a bright light grew to fill the entire room.


	2. The Meeting

Morgan Black, de facto leader of the Knights of Saint John after the treachery of Alain Magnan, was leading the assault on the southern Boneguard stronghold when the messenger arrived. "Sir, a group of people have appeared in the field to the east! We don't know where they came from."

"Are they reinforcements? From Malta, or from the Circle of Ossus?" Morgan asked back in his rich Scottish accent.

"No sir. There was a bright light, and they just appeared! Out of thin air!" the messenger replied.

"How can that be?" Morgan asked. "Sahin, you take command of the troops. I'll go deal with these newcomers."

"What! Leave me out of this?" asked the pirate queen Elisabet Ramsey playfully.

"You've got your own troops to command, Lizzie. I need to see this for myself." Morgan said. He strode back past the burning ruins of the Boneguard stronghold's walls to the field where the messenger had said the people had arrived.

Who are you? And what are you doing in the middle of a battlefield?" Morgan asked, baffled by the strange dress of the new arrivals. Their uniform was clearly military, but made of a strange material, and for no country he recognized.

The man in front, clearly the leader, began to reply: "I'm Colonel William Ronson of the United States Air Force, commander of the Earth ship _Prometheus_. Where are we?"

A woman on the side pulled Ronson away and began to talk with him before Morgan could respond. After a few seconds, he returned to speak with Morgan again. "This may be confusing, but we're from…" he glanced back at the woman, "far away. Very far away."

"How did you get here? Where exactly are you from?" Morgan asked, still unsure how to deal with them.

"Well, according to Major Carter, we've suffered a transtemporal accident due to unexpected distortions in subspace." He gestured at the woman, who was now examining a strange machine. Morgan was sure it hadn't been there before, and it looked too heavy to have been carried there so quickly.

"What?" asked Morgan.

"He means we're from the future," offered another man. "Hi, I'm Jack O'Neill. This is Daniel Jackson, and that friendly looking fellow over there is Teal'c." Teal'c bowed to Morgan.

Morgan shook his head. "From the future? How is that possible?" he asked.

"It's done with magnets," offered O'Neill helpfully.

"I don't know if I can believe that," Morgan said. "But I've seen many things over the past few days that I wouldn't have believed. Wherever you're from, and however you got here, whose side are you on? Are you here for the Fountain?"

"We're on the side of the United States. Whose side are you on?" Ronson asked.

"I'm Morgan Black, of the order of the Knights of Saint John, on Malta. I've come to this wilderness, this… Florida, to protect the Fountain of Youth from Alain Magnan and the Circle of Ossus. I don't believe in the power of the Fountain, but I don't want the Circle to get what they want."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Circle of Acid? What? Who are they?" asked O'Neill.

Before Morgan could answer, a cannonball whizzed overhead from a ship just off the shore, causing everyone to duck. Boneguard poured out of the ship, and began marching towards the group.

"I don't have much time to explain. They're a secret society, bent on acquiring power and eternal life. They're the ones attacking us right now."

"Hold on. Fountain of Youth, that sounds familiar. Where have we heard that before?" Daniel asked.

"I think it was in a crossword puzzle once," responded O'Neill.

Carter said, "No, wait! The Ancient healing device we came across in the temple in Honduras! We think it may have inspired the legend of the Fountain of Youth!" She turned to Colonel Ronson. "Sir, if we're right about this, this could be the solution to our problems. The reason we were transported back in time was the unexpected lensing of subspace due to the hyperdrive engine of the ship that attacked us. The device tried to correct its course, but it ran out of power; that's why we're stuck here. If we had access to a much greater power source—say, the one that would have to power an Ancient artifact, then we might be able to correct the distortion and safely travel home."

The Boneguard were nearly upon the group. Colonel Ronson addressed Morgan again: "What are you planning to do to this Fountain of Youth?"

"I'm going to destroy it."


	3. The Battle

The Circle's army bore down on the group, and battle was joined. But it soon became clear that the Boneguard training was no match for the superior weapons of the _Prometheus'_ crew. In less than a minute, the army was routed, the survivors fleeing the foreign guns.

With a newfound appreciation for the power of these newcomers, Morgan called a meeting of the leaders. Colonel Ronson, Colonel O'Neill, Morgan Black, Elisabet Ramsey, and Sahin the Falcon gathered together to decide on their strategy. After a few tense minutes, the commander managed to come up with a plan. At the core was the huge fixed gun on a bluff to the north. The gun was to fire continuously on the Fountain of Youth until it was nothing but rubble. Elisabet would send her ships, whenever new ones arrived from Havana, filled with Sahin's gunpowder to attack the Fountain. The _Prometheus'_ crew would defend the fixed gun from attack by taking up a position in the ruins of the southern Boneguard stronghold, while Morgan and Lizzie led their troops against the main force of the Boneguard, to the northeast.

Daniel ran up to Colonel O'Neill after the meeting. "Jack, are we sure we should be fighting these people? What if they have a good reason to fight, like the whole Eurondan business?"

At that moment, the clash of metal on metal broke out just in front of them. Another Boneguard army had disembarked, and was attacking Morgan's troops. Above the cacophony rose the voice of Alain Magnan: "You'll never win, Morgan! I will take the water of the Fountain, and the Circle will claim all of Europe! Surrender, now!"

"Well, I guess that settles that question," Daniel said, and he began firing into the mélee.

The Boneguard, prepared for the new weapons, advanced with better strategy this time. They hid where they could, fighting behind trees and buildings to stay out of range of the newcomers, but they didn't count on the new weapons' accuracy. After a few precise shots from the _Prometheus_ crewmen took out the leading soldiers, the rest retreated, Alain along with them. Morgan's troops surged forward.

As planned, the _Prometheus_ crew took up their defensive positions in the ruins, and SG-1 took up its position near the fixed gun. Morgan, Lizzie, and Sahin led their troops to the northeast to defeat the Circle of Ossus once and for all.

Colonel O'Neill surveyed the battle through his binoculars. The Maltese troops fought well against the Boneguard, managing to break through the wall and fight their way to the center of the Circle's operations. He could see no sign of Alain Magnan.

But then, cries came up from the base of operations that the _Prometheus_ crew had established. All of the crew without weapons were there, with a minimal guard. But Boneguard led by Alain Magnan had somehow slipped past the Knights' and Lizzie's fleet, and were about to attack the camp! The guard were armed with P-90s, but even their modern weaponry wouldn't be enough against the numbers of the attack. Colonel O'Neill knew Alain would overrun the guards and massacre the crew within seconds.

He turned to the workers of the fixed gun. "Gunners! Turn that around. Aim for Alain and his forces!" O'Neill ordered.

"But that's too close to—" the gunner began.

"Do it! Now! It's their only chance!"

The fixed gun laboriously turned to face the Boneguard army while the guards futilely fired, trying to slow it down. SG-1 ran back to the camp, trying to get within range. Seconds inched past. Finally, the cannon was in place, and fired.

The front rank of the Boneguard army exploded apart, and the army wavered. SG-1 came into range and began unloading into the Boneguard army. The army reformed, and came once more, but the second shot from the huge cannon blew them apart. The army broke and ran for the ship that had brought them there.

Morgan, Lizzie, and Sahin returned just minutes later, victorious in their conquest of the Circle. They found Alain lying, injured, trapped under his horse and partially buried in dirt. "The Circle will make you pay for what you have done here, Morgan. We will take revenge. On you, on your children, on your children's children!" Alain spat.

"Aye, that may be. But not here, and not today. And when they do, we will fight!"


	4. The Return

After the rout of the main force of the Boneguard army and the destruction of their fort, Morgan was easily able to shatter the Fountain of Youth with the combined power of the fixed gun and his fleet. When SG-1 sailed out on the _Paris Burning_ , they noticed a familiar shape bobbing in the water: the Ancient healing device.

As Major Carter pried open the device, Daniel worried. "Should we really be doing this? I mean, last time someone messed with this, people started turning into evil immortal zombies obsessed with killing everyone."

"It's okay. Since then, our further research with the help of the Tok'ra and the Asgard has shown us how to take it apart without activating it. I think," Carter responded.

"You think?" Daniel asked incredulously.

"Well, it's this or live the rest of our lives in the 1600s. Which would you prefer?" said Carter.

"Yeah, well, when you put it that way…"

The outer shell of the cube came off, exposing the softly glowing interior. "Good! It's undamaged. The device has two power sources, a primary one and a backup one. That's perfect for our needs," Carter said.

"Why?" asked O'Neill. "Why couldn't we just take the power core and get out of here?"

"Well, we could, but it would likely adversely affect the timestream. We know that when we went back in time, we created an alternate timeline from our normal one. If we change things back here, like by taking the power source from the device, things could change in the future as well. It wouldn't create a paradox, but it might prevent Daniel from escaping for the terrorists in Honduras, or prevent us from finding a way to defeat the Kull warriors. We want to affect the timeline as little as possible. That's why before we return home, we'll have to put the device into the temple in Honduras."

"Oh, no, not there again," said Daniel.

"Well, it's better than the alternative. We changed the past here, so it might not end up there at all if we don't put it there. Fortunately, with the increased power from this, we should be able to avoid any more subspace distortions, and can go straight there," explained Carter.

Major Carter connected the power source to the teleportation device and activated it, and the crew of the _Prometheus_ found itself once more in an unfamiliar location: the temple in Honduras. SG-1 returned the device to its proper location, carefully closing the trapdoor without activating the water trap. "Now for the more difficult part. If we want to save the _Prometheus_ , we'll have to jump back to the time right after we left. Too early, and we risk creating an alternate timeline. Too late, and the _Prometheus_ will be destroyed by the Goa'uld ship," Carter said.

"Why would we want to go back there? You may not have noticed, but there's a big honking ship trying to blow it up, and it had no defenses," replied O'Neill.

"We can convert the power source to power the _Prometheus_. It should give us enough power to defeat the Ha'tak—in fact, enough to superpower the ship. It won't last more than a few hours, but it will be plenty."

With that, Carter powered up the machine, the white light grew, and the _Prometheus_ crew was once again on the _Prometheus_ , still under fire from the Goa'uld vessel. Major Carter rushed the Ancient power source to the reactor room, and worked frantically to restore power to the shields as the entire crew worked damage control.

"Carter! We need that power back soon, or there won't have been any point to coming back here!" Ronson shouted into a radio, sparks flying around his head.

"I've almost got it! I just need to reroute power through the undamaged conduits, and… there!" Carter replied.

All through the ship, systems hummed back into operation. The continuous rocking of the ship ceased as the shield began absorbing the incoming fire.

"Great! Now, prepare to return fire on my mark," said Colonel Ronson.

"Wait. Allow me to speak with them. I may be able to convince them to see the error of their ways," said Teal'c.

"Do you really think that will work?" Ronson asked, skeptical.

"I do."

"Well, with this Ancient device powering the ship, our shields are holding. You have a minute," Ronson said. At a nod, an aide opened communications, and the commander of the Goa'uld Ha'tak sprang to life on one of the screens to the side.

The firing stopped. "Why have you hailed us?" he snarled.

"Now that we have restored power to our ship, you will find that it is far superior to yours. I wish to give you a chance to surrender," Teal'c responded.

"Surrender? Never! Prepare to meet your god, Apophis!" the commander said.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Apophis? Then you are unaware that Apophis is no more?" he responded.

"What? You blaspheme," replied the other jaffa.

"Apophis is dead. I witnessed the event with my own eyes, several years ago. News must have been very slow indeed to reach you."

"We have indeed been lost for many years. But we have never wavered in our service of Apophis! He is a god; gods cannot die!" said the jaffa. Yet though his words were strong, he was beginning to waver.

"Not only is Apophis dead, but the jaffa are beginning to free themselves from the shackles of the Goa'uld. All across the System Lords' empire, the jaffa rebellion is spreading. See with your own eyes the results of this rebellion."

The jaffa glanced at the information on the jaffa rebellion being transmitted to the ship. He hesitated for a moment, then snapped, "We will see for ourselves the state of the galaxy. But should we meet again, you will not be so lucky!" The Ha'tak turned, then jumped back into hyperspace.

The crew on the bridge let out a collective cheer. "You seem to have done it, Teal'c. The ship will probably need about a month of repair, but thanks to you and your team, we'll be able to land once more. Thank you, SG-1," Ronson said.

"No problem," replied Colonel O'Neill. "By the way, do you have any of that Jell-O left over?"


End file.
